Stress influences what we learn and remember. The hormone cortisol, which is released during stressful situations, can make emotional memories in particular stronger. But how exactly does cortisol help the brain build emotional memories?

In a new study, Yale researchers investigated just that. Specifically, they wanted to know how cortisol acts separately on brain circuits that track emotion and those that track memory. They found that cortisol not only helped people remember emotional experiences but also enhanced emotional memory by changing the dynamic brain networks associated with both memory and emotion.

“We all experience stress, and my lab is interested in understanding how stress can be helpful,” said corresponding author Elizabeth Goldfarb, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

SAN ANTONIO — April 14, 2026 — New research led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) integrated three types of machine learning models to generate solar magnetic patches with physical properties and used those as a query to find matching patches in real observations. This elevates generative artificial intelligence (AI) from a means to produce artificial data to a novel tool for scientific data interrogation, supporting applicability beyond the heliophysics domain.

A medical, humanitarian, transhumanist and politically neutral project. This is how Neuralink has described itself since it was first founded in 2016. Over the last decade, however, the company created by Elon Musk to develop implants for human-brain-computer communication has revealed itself to be much more than that. A study by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and published in Culture, Theory and Critique explores how this neural technology paves the way for a new form of power: psychopolitics.